Great Vic Bike Ride - here I come...

This year's Great Victorian Bike Ride will travel through Gippsland over nine days; ABC presenter Jeremy Lee is something of a veteran of this annual massed cycling event and gives his preview of what to expect and what he'll be experiencing over 591 kilometres of pedal-pushing.

Some weeks at the office can be pretty tough - take the week starting the 24th of November for example... That week, I'll be joining somewhere between four and five thousand people for this year's Great Victorian Bike Ride.

This will be my fourth ride after experiencing the previous three which have taken in the Great Ocean Road, Yarrawonga to Marysville, and last year's trek from Swan Hill to Castlemaine.

All of those rides have been based in the western and central areas of the state, so this will be my first time exploring the eastern part of Victoria from the relative comfort of a bicycle seat - indeed the Great Vic hasn't been through Gippsland since 2007.

The ride starts in Lakes Entrance on the Saturday, making its way to Bruthen.

From there we'll have overnight stops in Briagolong, Rosedale, Traralgon (for a rest day), Yarragon, Mirboo North, and San Remo, finishing on Sunday the second of December with a ride around Philip island.

For those doing the full nine days that's a tidy 591 kilometers.

I confess to knowing absolutely nothing about most of those places, so I'm looking forward to exploring each town and seeing what sort of reception we get, because one of the great things about the ride is the community response in each town we stop in.

One thing which is worrying me is the weather - so far I've been pretty lucky only getting completely saturated once a couple of years ago when coming into Seymour.

Gippsland does seem to get more than its fair share of rain and severe weather warnings however - I'm sensing it's going to be very important to make sure everything is packed inside plastic bags to keep things dry.

No matter what happens I'll be taking plenty of photos each day and talking to as many of the riders as I can along the way, and I'll be posting daily updates and photo galleries here on ABC Local Radio websites.

So if you're not joining me on the ride, you'll be able to keep up with its progress right here and see some of the countryside we're cycling through.

Jeremy Lee has for the past four years been taking a laptop, camera and audio recorder on the road with him as he cycles the Great Victorian Bike Ride - see the sights and meet the people he's chatted with in the previous stories he's filed from the road, wherever the great Vic Bike Ride takes him